U.S. Response I:  Strike at U.S. Port Would Ripple Across the Globe

By Greg Seigle
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Handheld radiation detectors used to detect a nuclear bomb smuggled through a U.S. seaport might not be enough, and an attack with weapons of mass destruction at any U.S. port would wreak havoc on global commerce by halting shipping for four months, senior transportation officials told a Senate subcommittee yesterday.

A terrorist attack involving even a single ship might force Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta to abruptly close all 361 U.S. ports, said William Schubert, the Transportation Department’s maritime administrator.

Grounding air transportation for four days last year as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks cost businesses billions in lost revenue and forced the federal government to bail out airlines.  Those events would pale in comparison to a seaport shutdown, Schubert told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information.

“We would have to shut our ports down for four months just to check all the containers,” Schubert said, referring to the tens of thousands of 40-foot containers stacked at U.S. ports on any given day.  “If anything would ruin our economy, that would.”

The few lawmakers present at the hearing, including those who represent the nation’s largest ports in New York and Los Angeles, agreed that ports are extremely vulnerable to WMD attacks.  These concerns are accentuated by predictions that container cargo traffic, which constitutes 90 percent of global trade, could double or triple within 20 years.

“If it comes to commerce or protection, protection will always come first,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), whose state has three of the busiest ports in the country, Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland.

“I don’t mind our ports being shut down for four months if that will prevent a nuclear explosion.  That’s nothing,” she said.

Terrorists Likely to Shield Weapons

Meanwhile, any nuclear bomb smuggled into a U.S. port in a shipping container would probably be encased in lead, shielding it from inspectors’ handheld radiation detectors, Customs Service assistant commissioner Bonni Tischler told the subcommittee.

If terrorists or agents of any country ever try to sneak a nuclear bomb into a U.S. seaport — a realistic scenario considering that on a daily basis drugs, weapons, material goods and even people are smuggled into the country in shipping containers — they would likely conceal its radiation emissions with lead casing, Tischler said.

A smuggled nuclear device “probably will come shielded,” Tischler said.

“If it’s shielded, you’re not going to pick it up” with the 4,000 handheld radiation detectors currently used by customs inspectors throughout the country, she added.  “So I think we need lead detectors.”

Customs inspectors do use X-ray devices to scan containers — readings that would detect lead casings — but these contraptions are large, cumbersome, crane-like devices only used on a small percentage of the 6 million containers shipped into the United States each year.

While it has been frequently reported that inspection rates for containers are only 2 percent, Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner said the figures are higher.  Rates are even up to 10 percent with Canadian goods, under the belief terrorists might try to smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the United States through Canadian ports of entry, Bonner said.

Shipping containers offloaded at Canadian and U.S. ports could soon wind up almost anywhere in the United States after being trucked or railroaded from a seaport without even being opened.  Any containers that contain hidden nuclear, biological or chemical weapons could then be detonated or released at some unsuspecting site.

In the past decade the shipping industry has spared safety for profits, said Feinstein.

“Everything has been to speed trade, let it go through, ask questions later,” Feinstein said.  “I agree with [Tischler] on the shielding, and I agree with the need for more X-rays.”

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U.S. Response II:  Nuclear Plants Have 20 Days to Implement New Security Measures

U.S. nuclear power plants have 20 days to implement enhanced security measures, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said yesterday.

An order for the new security measures, which was earlier reported in a Reuters story in the Philadelphia Inquirer as having been in effect since mid-February, is now effective immediately, according to NRC statements (see GSN, Feb. 15).  Plant licensees now have 20 days to notify the NRC if they believe they would be unable to comply with any of the new security measures.

The enhanced security measures include requirements to:

*         Increase patrols at nuclear power plants,

*         Strengthen plant guard forces,

*         Add security stations,

*         Install physical barriers,

*         Perform security checks at greater stand-off distances,

*         Improve cooperation with law enforcement and military officials and

*         Increase on-site access restrictions for plant personnel.

“Some of these requirements formalize a series of security measures that NRC licensees had taken in response to advisories issued by the NRC in the aftermath of the Sep. 11 terrorist attacks,” the NRC said.  “The commission views these compensatory measures as prudent, interim measures to address the high-level threat environment in a consistent manner throughout the nuclear reactor community” (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission release, Feb. 26).

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U.S. Response:  Olympics Were Secure, Officials Say

Organizers of the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City said the games were kept safe because of the $310 million security effort, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Feb. 21).

“It may well have prevented potential threats or kept this from being a crime target,” said Salt Lake City Olympic chief Mitt Romney.

During the Olympics, there were more than 600 reports of suspicious packages, with all of them turning out to be harmless, according to the AP.  As the Olympics progressed, police and security forces had so little to do that some volunteers left the event early, the AP reported.

One news conference midway into the games, presided over by David Tubbs, executive director of the Olympic security command, was barely attended by reporters, according to the AP (Rich Vosepka, Associated Press, Feb. 26).

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Israeli Response:  Air Force Plans to Deploy Patriot Missiles Centrally

The Israeli air force plans to install a Patriot anti-missile battery in the center of the country to protect against attacks from passenger airliners hijacked by terrorists, the Jerusalem Post reported today (see GSN, Feb. 5).

The decision to deploy a Patriot battery at a base in central Israel came in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a report published today in an issue of the Israeli Air Force Magazine.  Previously, Patriot batteries were reserved for military defenses.

Last December, the Israeli air force conducted an exercise based on the Sept. 11 attacks, with F-16 fighter jets assuming flight patterns of passenger jets.  The planes flew missions along the international flight paths that lead into Israel, and officials concluded that a Patriot battery installed in the center of the country would be able to target the aircraft, according to the report in Air Force Magazine.

“Because of its success, the placement of a Patriot battery is planned at the base for the future,” the magazine said.

Israeli military officials said an attack similar to those on Sept. 11 could occur against Israeli cities, and proper defenses are needed to protect against this new threat.

“The terror attack that took place in the United States demonstrated the airborne terror threat that could also be directed against Israeli population centers,” Brig. Gen. Yair Dori, head of the Israeli anti-aircraft forces, was quoted as saying.

“One of the ways to provide the maximum defense from this sort of threat is the placement of a Patriot battery in the center of the country near the international flight paths that traverse Israel from the west to east,” Dori said (Arieh O’Sullivan, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 25).

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Canadian Response:  Canada at Low Risk for Bioterrorism, Official Says

Canada’s top bioterrorism official said Canada is at a low risk for a bioterrorism attack and is prepared for one if it should occur, the Ottawa Citizen reported yesterday.

The anthrax attacks in the United States sped up plans that were already in place to improve capabilities at Canadian laboratories to diagnose biological weapons agents, said Ron St. John, head of Health Canada’s branch for emergency preparedness (see GSN, Jan. 16).

“Things that were three-year plans became six-month plans,” St. John said.

Preparedness Emphasized

St. John said it was important for Canadians to keep in mind that the fear of a bioterrorism attack is almost as dangerous as an attack itself.

“We believe strongly that education is a really important part of this,” St. John said.  “We want to make people aware of this idea of low threat, but it does require some degree of preparedness.  Because it is not a purely theoretical threat, as witnessed by the anthrax.  It became a reality.  But we don’t want people to be paralyzed by the stuff.”

St. John is the head of the Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response, which was created in 2000 to be the main Canadian agency for public health security, according to the Citizen.  The center has 90 employees and is prepared to respond to any disaster, including terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction.

“I am one phone call away — every day, seven days a week — from trivia or the worst disaster the country will ever face,” St. John said.  “My cell phone is on 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Most people do not understand that it is much harder than believed for a terrorist to conduct an attack using biological weapons, St. John said.  The anthrax attacks last fall in the United States were a perfect example, he said.  Even though the letters contained millions of anthrax spores, only five people were killed.

“It didn’t kill millions. … It points out that it is somewhat difficult to create a catastrophe,” St. John said.  “So you can be somewhat reassured” (Mark Kennedy, Ottawa Citizen, Feb. 24).

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